Sony's streaming game service, PlayStation Now, will finally be available in an open beta on the PlayStation TV and the PlayStation Vita when Sony's first micro-console launches in North America on Oct. 14. The service is already available in open beta on the PS3 and PS4.

PlayStation Now offers gamers over 150 PS3 titles for rent at prices that range from $7.99 for 30 days to as much as $4.99 for four hours. That crazy pricing is subject to change based on feedback from the ongoing open beta period.

Yesterday we reported that GameFly sold the digital distribution platform (Direct2Drive, which was later renamed GameFly Digital) it bought from IGN in 2011 to a company called atGames. Today Dave Hodess - the CEO of GameFly - shed a little light on why the company decided to divest itself of that business.

Video games rental service GameFly has divested itself of the PC digital games platform that it bought from IGN in 2011 to AtGames. After purchasing Direct2Drive (an early competitor to Valve's Steam) from IGN in 2011, the company rebranded and relaunched the service as "GameFly Digital." The company has put up a small notice announcing the sale on its PC games portal at digital.gamefly.com.

Sony's game rental service, PlayStation Now, will roll out in a public beta beginning today and games (100 of them will be available from 50 publishers) will be priced at $2.99 for four hours of play, $5.99 for seven days, $7.99 for 30 days, and $14.99 for 90 days.

According to this [A]ListDaily report, video game and movie rental kiosk company Redbox has an incredibly high conversation rate when it comes to video game sales. The company credits this to a demographic they call "recreational gamers." Research conducted on behalf of the company through surveys finds that recreational gamers are the average age of 34-years-old, spend about six hours a week playing games, over 58 percent of this demographic have kids, and make roughly $61,000 a year.

Sony will begin rolling out its PlayStation Now beta to select models of its smart TVs in the United States next week, the company announced today. Beginning June 30, owners of Sony 4K Ultra HDTV sets and select 1080p HDTVs will get access to the "Private Pilot Service."

The beta test for PlayStation Now on these select TVs will allow participants to play PlayStation 3 games on their television with no console required, though they will have to connect a DualShock 3 controller to the TV to play the streamed PS3 games.

A new game trading company called Game Gorilla wants to help you make safe trades of your games with strangers by serving as the middle man. The company is currently running an Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign to raise $50,000 to make the service a reality. If fully funded the company hopes to provide a service that lets users trade console games with anyone in the United States for $5 plus shipping and handling.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has approved the Postal Commission's plan to end DVD-mailer discrimination and Netflix's favored status at the U.S. Postal Service. The decision was the result of a complaint by GameFly. The U.S. Postal Service will now equalize the postage for DVD flats and letters.

There were rumors floating about last week that the PlayStation Store would offer rental options to customers as part of its Gaikai-powered streaming service for older PS3 games. It turns out that there is some truth to it.

Video and video game rental giant Blockbuster is not going to exist by the end of January 2014. Parent company Dish Network announced today that it will shut down its retail and by-mail rental distribution operations by early January 2014. The 300 remaining retail stores in the United States and distribution centers will also be closed.

"This is not an easy decision, yet consumer demand is clearly moving to digital distribution of video entertainment," Dish CEO Joseph P. Clayton said in a statement.

While there has been a lot of back and forth on how to remedy the situation best, the Postal Regulatory Commission issued a directive today announcing that they will equalize the rates for "letter- and flat-shaped DVD mail" by reducing the price for a two-ounce First-Class flat-shaped round-trip DVD mailer to the price of a one-ounce mailer First-Class letter-shaped round-trip DVD mailer beginning on Sept. 30.

Microsoft's sea change on its Xbox One DRM policies yesterday is being celebrated by video game rental company GameFly, which described the news as a "win/win for consumers." In an interview with Joystiq, GameFly co-founder Sean Spector was pleased with the news because Microsoft left the question of being able to rent a game up in the air.

Realizing that it has lost the war on Xbox One's online requirements and its used games policies, Microsoft announced today that it is abandoning them altogether. Microsoft has changed its stance on always online and used game policies to be more like they were on Xbox 360. In a blog post explaining the changes President of Microsoft's interactive entertainment business, Don Mattrick, laid out the changes.

Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) President Hal Halpin offers his insights on video game ownership - a topic that has caused cheers for Sony and jeers for Microsoft at E3 in Los Angeles this week.

DVD and video game rental company Redbox has launched a website to encourage consumers to discuss Sony and Microsoft's rental policies for games on their respective next-generation consoles. Microsoft and Sony are set to host their E3 press conferences later today. Microsoft has already indicated that it will let publishers decide if used games can be used on the console, but Microsoft has not indicated how the new system will handle rentals.

Bluestacks wants its new console system, the Android-based GamePop, to be "Netflix for games." Pre-orders have launched for the device, which won't cost consumers more than a monthly commitment to sign up to its games services and to pay around $10 for shipping and handling. For a $6.99 monthly fee, customers get access to a library of over 500 Android-based games, the GamePop console, a controller, the power supply and HDMI cable.

Signifi Solutions has launched a new video game vending kiosk called the 'Gamer Spot Shop' that allows consumers to rent and purchase video games, going head-to-head with other companies that provide similar services such as Redbox.

Signifi says that most retailers spend a lot of resources to sell video games, but with its kiosk solution retailers can automate the process, have better control over inventory and reduce manpower.

Back when OnLive was launched in 2010, cloud gaming was seen as a leviathan rising from the deep. On paper, the concept was not only pretty watertight, but it was a strong contender to traditional gaming models (especially the console market).

Cloud gaming was going to happen. It was just a question of logistics.

GameFly, the leader in video game rentals by-mail and on-demand through PC has laid off a number of its staff today as part of a restructuring plan, Joystiq reports. In a prepared statement to Joystiq GameFly CEO Dave Hodess said that these layoffs are part of the company's business aligning itself better to existing console and digital games markets.

Dish Network announced that it plans to close hundreds of Blockbuster stores in the next couple of weeks and expects to cut thousands of jobs as a result. The video and videogame rental company was bought by Dish in 2010 after the company went bankrupt. CNN Money reports that 300 stores will be closed in the United states and 3,000 jobs will be lost.

Square Enix announced today that it is launching a new web-based gaming service that will allow consumers to play console quality, high definition games in their browser. The service is called CoreOnline, and will feature a micro transaction-based system.

The first titles released are Hitman: Blood Money and Mini Ninjas, with other games such as Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, Tomb Raider: Underworld, and others to follow at a later date to be determined.

Five months ago kiosk video game and movie rental company Redbox announced a deal with Verizon to create a service to compete with Netflix. Today we learn a little bit more about the service via a freshly launched website. The name of the new service is "Redbox Instant by Verizon," and it will be headed by Shawn Strickland, who served as an executive for Verizon’s FiOS Pay TV service.

According to a new report (Q1 2012 Games Market Dynamics: U.S.) from research firm NPD Group, estimated total consumer spending on used and rental game content in the first quarter of 2012 reached $525 million, and content in digital format (full game and add-on content downloads, subscriptions, mobile games and social network games) generated $1.38 billion. This is in addition to the $1.5 billion spent in the U.S. by consumers on new physical video and PC game software.

VentureBeat offers an exclusive infographic it put together based on data given to the publication by video rental kiosk leader Redbox. The data in question relates to video game rentals, a market that the company owned by Coinstar decided to jump into last year (if you want to see what games Redbox offers, check out the Games Section of its web site).

Blockbuster UK has launched a rewards program specifically for gamers called "Blockbuster VIP Gamer" and just by signing up members receive 2,500 points. The idea of the program is to earn these points that can then be used for a variety of perks including discounts on purchases, free rentals, free software, and - if you can amass a large amount of points - free hardware.

If you are a parent who has no idea about technology, games or the dark places of the Internet, then you might be interested in learning more about "The Modern Parent’s Guide" series of free books. Written by games journalist Scott Steinberg, the first title in the series, "The Modern Parent’s Guide to Kids and Video Games," is available now as a free download at www.videogamesandkids.com. 

If you were hoping that Netflix was still considering renting video games like it does with disc-based movies, let that hope die tonight. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said today on a call to discuss the latest quarter’s earnings, that the idea was dead and laying in a shallow grave right next to the one about renaming its disc-based rental service to "Quikster."

Kiosk-based rental firm RedBox has announced the top ten most rented games in 2011, revealing that the Xbox 360 was the platform of choice based on the games rented. The most popular game was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 on Xbox 360, followed by Just Dance 3 for Wii, Dead Island for Xbox 360, Cars 2 for Wii, and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 on PlayStation 3. Clearly the big winner in the list was Modern Warfare 3. Game rentals have been available at the company's kiosks nationwide since June.

Some publishers and developers think that the practice of buying a used game is like committing an act of software piracy, so it comes as no surprise that a company like Blockbuster - who rents them to consumers and gives a portion of that revenue to game makers - has support for many in the game industry. Blockbuster believes that what it does is a way to reduce used game sales too. By offering what they consider reasonable game rental terms.

Video rental company Redbox said that game sales are proving lucrative for the company, and that Wii games in particular are popular among its customers. The kiosk-based rental company issued a statement Monday saying that it had seen over 4 million sales for 2011 and that around 5,000 new kiosks have been deployed throughout the country. At the present time, 27,000 machines offer game rentals.